NUMSA's preliminary Response to the State of the Nation Address (SoNA)
Tuesday 17 June 2014, Parliament RSA
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) notes the State of the Nation Address (SoNA) delivered by President Jacob G. Zuma, to the 5th democratic parliament. Whilst the SoNA as delivered by President Zuma, was not new both in form and content, since it spectacularly failed to signal any radical shift. A detailed and comprehensive response to the SoNA will be publicly presented after our National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for 25-27 June 2014. Below is our union's preliminary response.
In his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on the 13 February 2014 President Zuma repeatedly said that the South African government successfully accomplished its mandate over the last twenty years and that ‘South Africa is a much better place to live in now than it was before 1994'.
In his address yesterday, 17 June 2014, President Zuma continued with the ideological fog of a ‘good story to tell' and outlined government's commitment to eradicate poverty, unemployment and inequality and stressed that the incoming administration was hard at work to make the National Development Plan a reality. We have consistently argued that the neoliberal embedded NDP represents a departure from the Freedom Charter, and advances a failed and disastrous neoliberal agenda, which seeks to send the working class into a permanent lull.
While calling for the social partners to resolve what he calls a ‘untenable labour relations environment', the President has reinforced some of the remarks made recently by his colleagues presumably over the duration of the mining strike. Both the Minister of Labour and the newly appointed Minister of Mineral Resources have raised issues over the right to strike fuelling our suspicion that government intends to limit this right by making further amendments to the Labour Relations Act.
It should be noted that while the LRA amendment Bill was passed by Parliament in March 2014 before the elections, it has not yet been signed as there are indications that the President wants to refer the Bill back to Parliament to re-introduce clauses attacking the right to strike. Further, if our labour legislators decide to follow the Australian model and introduce compulsory interest arbitration, thereby preventing strikes beyond a maximum number of days, then our right to strike would be negated as soon as the law kicks in.
In February the Minister of Finance claimed that 56 000 beneficiaries were recorded since the Employment Tax Incentive Act (ETIA) was introduced at the beginning of the year. President Zuma says that this number has now increased to 133000 with some 11 000 employers participating in this incentive scheme. Even though Statistics SA does not measure employment of people from 18 to 29 years old, it captures employment data of those aged between 15-24 and 24-34.
If the youth tax incentive was favourable either one or both of the categories of employment would have increased. However, compared to the last quarter of 2013 there are less people employed between the ages of 15 to 34 and the unemployment rate increased by an average of 2.75%. NUMSA reaffirms its opposition to the ETIA and calls on government to scrap this false solution as a matter of urgency.
NUMSA notes that government intends to continue outsourcing our energy sector to Independent Power Producers and that very little is being done to promote social ownership of our valuable natural resources. The long awaited amendments to the MPRDA making it possible for a developmental or discounted price of strategic minerals for local suppliers has been jettisoned in favour of market related prices.
There appears to be some backpedalling by the DMR and at the Mining Indaba in February this year the Minister was widely quoted by the media when she said that that mining companies would not be forced to beneficiate or subsidise the manufacturing industry.
On the 4 March 2014 several changes were made to the MPRDA Amendment Bill, including a new definition for designated minerals and the insertion of mine gate price or agreed price to replace the model of ‘developmental pricing conditions'. In response to these changes the South African Chamber of Mines (CoM) issued a press release supporting the MPRDA now that it provides for more consultation with mining companies and greater clarity on the issue of domestic pricing.
Recognising these changes to the MPRDA Amendment Bill and noting the recent statements by the Minister at the Mining Indaba it seems that a watered down version of the Bill will likely be signed into effect by the President now that the Bill has been approved by the NA and NCOP. This could have a negative effect on government's beneficiation strategy and slow down the DTI's proposal to fast track beneficiation of our mineral resources in the course of implementing the country's Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP).
NUMSA is of the view that very little is being done to promote procurement and that local content requirements are being flouted by imports. While the President has alluded to procurement of buses and rolling stock, Transnet and PRASA continue to dish out contracts to foreign owned companies. Government's programme to install 1m SWH by 2014 and the subsequent designation of SWH by the Department of Trade and Industry to encourage local content has failed to stem the tide of imports. Engineering News (19 May 2014) reported that;"Many government departments are flouting procurement rules on local content, despite specific regulations having been introduced compelling all spheres of government and State companies to source ‘designated' products from domestic producers".
It would have been more appropriate for President Zuma to initiate steps to enforce greater monitoring and compliance with procurement regulations and local content requirements, but so long as those in officialdom can walk away from graft and corruption with impunity, the task of implementing our Industrial Policy Action Plan becomes more difficult.
Finally, in response to all the promises and commitments from the President about a better life for all, we could go along with the maxim that says "believe it when we see it".
But after twenty years of democracy we have witnessed the liberalisation of our economy and the imposition of several macro-economic policies that have continuously called for wage restraint, the deregulation of the market, labour flexibility, the use of labour brokers and the erosion of collective bargaining gains. For some, the material benefits after apartheid have just got better, but for the vast majority of South Africans income levels have widened followed by rising levels of unemployment, poverty and socio-economic exclusion.
In our Special National Congress (SNC) in December 2013, we resolved to implement a programme of rolling socio-economic strikes if government failed to meet our demands on a number of issues including, but not limited to the following:
Beneficiation of all strategic minerals, a ban on the export of scrap metals and rebuilding of foundries, import parity pricing and an export tax on all strategic minerals.
An increase in import tariffs on certain goods to the maximum allowed by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Nationalisation of the Reserve Bank, exchange controls and an end to inflation targeting
De-commercialisation of state owned enterprises and the re-nationalisation of SASOL and Arcelor Mittal South Africa
Labour market issues and low wage employment including the minimum wage.
Nationalisation of the mines
This we will do by using the LRA and in a phased manner lodge a series of Section 77 Notices in NEDLAC on matters of a socio-economic nature.
NUMSA will continue to unite common struggles against the onslaught of capitalism and metalworkers have vowed to defend the rights of the working class and the poor until such time that we can all enjoy the fruits of our hard earned freedom.
Statement issued by Woody Aroun, NUMSA Parliamentary Office, June 18 2014
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